Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "Drachinifel" channel.

  1. wrt the main armament, in my reading, it was head of BuOrd, Admiral Strauss, previously known for being the father of the superimposed turrets on the Kearsarge and Virginia classes, that was advocating for the 14". As Drac said, Strauss maintained that engagements would always be at 12,000 yards or less. At that range, the 14" could penetrate well enough, and, being lighter, more could be carried. In a newspaper article speculating whether the Tennessees would have 16" rather than 14", there was some FUD injected into the debate, claiming the 16" had an alarmingly high wear rate, and claims that the British 15"/42 also had a very short service life, while the 14" had an excellent service life. Strauss held the line on the 14", until the summer of 1916. Jutland made it clear his 12,000 maximum engagement range was unrealistic, and, that summer, Daniels announced, with the agreement of the General Board, the next class, the Colorados, would be armed with 16" guns. In his annual report in the fall of 16, Daniels said this decision was made "over the objection of some officers". Strauss requested sea duty. There was no movement on his request for sea duty for a month or two. Late that year, in Congressional testimony, Strauss, again, rolled out his talking points for the 14", publicly pushing back on the decision made months before by Daniels and the General Board. President Wilson moved the next day to appoint then head of the Indian Head test range, Ralph Earle, as head of BuOrd, and Strauss was given command of the Nevada. The SecNav annual reports from 15-16 and newspapers of the same period made for some fascinating reading about this debate.
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  2. As Drac noted, these were the first USN battleships mounting the new 12"/40, which was specifically designed to use smokeless powder. As mentioned in response to another question a week or so back, when the 12"/40, and the 8"/40, were designed, the designers did not fully understand the dynamics of smokeless powder. As a result, these guns had a tendency to blow off their muzzle and chase, due to higher than expected pressure in the tube. The Navy instituted a modification program that encompassed installing a heavy nickle steel liner inside, and hooping the barrel to the muzzle on the outside to reinforce the barrel. The Maines also used the Mk IV turret, which was the first balanced large turret used by the USN. The preceding Illinois class was the first the use the Mk IV, but pared it with the older 13"/35. As Drac said, by WWI all the Maine and Illinois class ships were relegated to the reserve squadron, spending the bulk of their time tied up in a navy yard with a skeleton crew. On March 6, 1915, Maine was being used as a receiving ship in the Brooklyn Navy Yard when a sea cock burst and the ship sank at the pier.
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  3. There was a loophole in the Washington treaty the Brits could have exploited. According to the treaty, any carrier in commission or building, at the time of the treaty, was regarded as experimental and exempt from the treaty's replacement schedule, meaning they could be replaced with new carriers at any time. Argus, Eagle and Hermes all met that criteria. Eagle wasn't that bad. It had a bit of speed and a bit of size. It could cruse with a division of QEs and provide CAP and recon. But Argus had no speed and Hermes had no size. Argus and Hermes could both have been reclassified as something non-carrier, like sub tenders, and free up enough tonnage to build a second Ark Royal.
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  4. The Essex class Lexington: CV-16. The Lex was claimed sunk so many times, reportedly 4 times, by the Japanese it became known as "the blue ghost", blue because it entered service with an experimental blue paint job. When I was on the Lex many years later, I noticed it's C-1 sitting in the hangar, with a blue ghost painted on the aft fuselage. When Drach said Birmingham was cruising with the Lex, I knew it was in for a rough time.
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  5. I have read that the triple flight deck arrangement was considered for the Lexingtons as well. Consider it pure luck that the Lexingtons ended up built as they were. The USN was so short of money that three-decked Lexingtons may not have been rebuilt as Akagi was, and entered the war in that obsolete configuration.
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  6. Not long ago, I reread "Fifty Ships That Saved The World" about the destroyers for bases deal, and service of the ships in the RN. HMS Ludlow, that Drac mentioned at the end of his piece, had an interesting incident at the start of it's RN service. Ludlow, the former USS Stockton, was one of the earlier Caldwell class ships, significantly shorter ranged than the later classes. She had made it to France in 1917, so she should have been able to make the trip again, if everything went smoothly. Ludlow, in company with several other destroyers, was making her way to the UK, when radio traffic was picked up from Jervis Bay, which was engaging the Scheer, desperately asking for help. The USN had turned over the ships with full magazines and torpedo tubes. so the destroyers rang up flank speed and rushed to Jervis Bay's assistance. They arrived at the scene too late to help. But that flank speed run had tossed Ludlow's fuel consumption calculations in the dustbin. According to the book, Ludlow's burners went out, from lack of fuel, just as she dropped anchor in Belfast. Reports of Jervis Bay's action say that Scheer's reconnaissance plane had spotted the convoy, and reported it as completely unescorted. Can't help but wonder, if the destroyers, iirc, about six, had been steaming from Halifax with the convoy, would Scheer have attacked? If Scheer had attacked, what would the result have been, with six destroyers firing their large loads of torpedoes at Scheer?
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  7. Argus was one of the carriers classified "experimental" by the Washington Treaty. That meant she could be replaced at the Admiralty's convenience, rather than waiting until she was 20 years old. I have read that the Admiralty had a plan to replace Argus, Hermes, and Eagle with new carriers in the early 30s, as they were all classified "experimental". Going by the standard displacements listed in Wiki, the carriers in service in the late 20s displaced a total of 118,830 tons, of the UK's 135,000 ton quota. Not enough displacement remained of the quota to build Ark Royal. Even though laid up, Argus was still classified as a carrier. She was taken in hand in 36 for conversion to a mother ship for target drones, which included removing her armament. As an unarmed non-combatant upon recommissioning in August 38, her tonnage became available for Ark Royal, which commissioned in December, 38. This was the same scheme the USN adopted for Langley, converting her to a seaplane tender, to free the tonnage for Wasp. Unfortunately, budget constraints in the 30s prevented the Admiralty completing their plan, replacing Hermes and Eagle with additional Ark Royal class carriers.
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  8. I was reading some old newspaper articles about Greece's search for replacements for the Hydras in response to the Ottomans buying the Brandenburgs. There were reports of Greece trying to buy pretty much anything from the USN, including one proposal floated by a US shipyard: the yard was to buy five old US battleships, the Indianas and Kersarges, then resell two of them to Greece, if Greece contracted with that yard for one new battleship. As we know, Greece ended up with the Mississippis, the red-headed stepchildren of the USN, which had been forced on the Navy by Senator Hale, head of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee. The most hilarious part of the entire affair is that Greece was so desperate that SecNav Daniels extracted from Greece the full cost the USN paid to have the now hopelessly obsolete Mississippis built.
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  9. On the steering dreadnoughts question: in the film "The Wreck of the Mary Deare", the ship in question being a coal fired tramp steamer. there are brief views of the steering gear in action: a steam driven engine driving a gear on the rudder shaft. On the Lexington (CVT-16 in my day), there was no "feel" to the steering at all, just a bit of friction in the mechanism. On the wheel post itself was a mechanical indicator showing the rudder angle I was calling for. In front of me was a round dial with an arrow showing the actual rudder angle. I could spin the wheel to call for a specific rudder angle, then watch the indicator as the rudder responded. There is a WWII vintage LST preserved in Muskegon, Michigan, which I checked out 3 years ago. Rudder actuation is by motor, driving a capstan which pulls steel cables on the tiller. The capstan has handles so it can be cranked by hand.
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  10. Russian treatment of loaned ships brings to mind the old phrase "beat it like a rented mule".
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  11. I'm trying to imagine what it would be like to have Jackie, as a young officer, as a messmate, on a long, boring cruise. I think I would enjoy it.
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  12. When the Franklin went to the breakers, in the 60s, one of the US TV networks produced a documentary about it. Besides the archival footage, the show had several members of the crew from that day, talking about what they were doing and how they survived.
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  13. Not only were the Elenas retained by the Washington Treaty, the treaty also listed the da Vinci as a serving battleship, when it was in reality nothing but a refloated hull. My dislike of waste says another party to the treaty should have been able to transfer a couple ships, that otherwise would be scrapped for treaty compliance, to Italy, for scrap value, to replace the Elenas, but Italy probably would not have wanted the cost of running them.
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  14.  @rob5944  correct, FDR had to make the deal palatable for Congress, by the US gaining something for the ships. In a transatlantic telephone call, the parties were trying to work out a deal. At one point Churchill said "Empires don't bargain". iirc, it was the US Secretary of State who replied "but republics do". This story was also relayed in "Fifty Ships That Saved The World".
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  15. Fascinating discussion. Not long ago, I speculated on a triple main armament. Even found a speculative drawing of Bismark with a three-triple main armament. Like you, I wondered why they did not go triple, as, having built the Deutschlands and Scharnhorsts with triples, they should have been in their comfort zone with them. The only concern I had was that, with the horizontal sliding breech, the barbette would need to be larger, which might cause a problem for Anton, given the width of the hull at that point. However, with only three turrets, seems the superstructure could be moved aft, so Anton and Bruno would be where the hull is wider. I posted about this thought on a Navy group on Facebook. Knowing that you lurk that group from time to time, what did you think of that discussion? As for the 105mm DP secondary, iirc, Jackie Fisher was an advocate of a greater number of 4", vs the 6" secondary the RN was going to in the run-up to WWI. The two classes Fisher had a direct hand in, Renown and Courageous, had the infamous triple 4", while QE and Revenge had 6". Can't help but wonder why the RN did not go with the QF 4", rather than the BL. With the QF's fixed rounds, both the bag man and rammer could be eliminated, reducing the crowding that plagued that triple mount. wrt the triple screw design, I have read that the Germans found a triple screw layout made it easier to negotiate the turns in the Kiel Canal. Looking at how they have the rudders laid out: one either side of the center screw, I wonder if they were going for a thrust vectoring effect. I speculate the drill when transiting the canal was to make the trip on the center screw only. With only the center screw providing thrust, it would be running faster than if all three were turning, producing a stronger stream. With the twin rudders, whichever way the helm was turned, the broad side of one rudder or the other would be turned into that high speed stream from the center screw, vectoring the thrust. Really enjoyed this post. Thanks!
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  16. wrt the question about gas ejection systems in guns, the incident on Missouri that Drac mentioned produced several changes in USN turret design. At the time, the gunners were supposed to inspect the gun chamber for embers or flames, before ramming the next shot. Missouri was on a gunnery training exercise on April 13, 1904. After firing, the crew began ramming the next shot. When the first two bags were rammed, they immediately ignited. Inspection of the turret after the fire found the rammer still fully extended. Flames shooting out of the breech ignited the two bags still on the hoist, because the hoist was completely unprotected. Burning propellant fell from the hoist car in the turret down the barbette, igniting more charges in the handling room at the bottom of the barbette. Thirty six men died that day. The navy decreed that air injections systems be installed in the guns, and that hoists be completely enclosed in trunks with flash proof shutters.
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  17. We have the Greeks to thank for keeping a WWII vintage LST in commission until 1999. In 2000, it was purchased by a preservation group, which brought her back to the US. LST-325 is now based in Evansville, Indiana, still in her WWII configuration, still fully operable, and makes river cruises in the fall. I haven't been to 325, but I have toured LST-393 in Muskegon, MI. 393 was used to ship new cars across Lake Michigan for years, so, unlike 325, all of 393's original armament was removed long ago.
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  18. Not only was Ark scrapped, Bulwark suffered fires in her hangar (November 1980) and boiler room (March 1980). Damage from neither was repaired, and she decommissioned March 27th of 81. The Argies invaded the Falklands on April 2.
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  19. As luck would have it, I recently read the Friedman book on aircraft carriers. In 1918, with zero experience with carriers, the pro-aviation faction of the USN had decided that it wanted carriers 825' long, displacing 24,000 tons with 140,000hp. By 1920, their ambition had grown to 35,000 tons, 180,000hp and they wanted six of them, now! Sounds like they were eying the Lexington class battlecruisers for conversion before they were even laid down. Not surprisingly, when the Washington treaty resulted in the cancellation of the battlecruisers, the pro-aviation faction was ready with a proposal to convert two of them to carriers, committing nearly half of the US' allowable carrier tonnage, while the USN still had little first hand experience in building and operating carriers. The Lexingtons were horribly inefficient carriers, which particularly mattered in the post Washington Treaty environment they were built in. Yorktown and Essex each have hangar decks 200' longer than Lexington, on lower displacement. It the 2 Lexington's had never been built, that would have freed up tonnage to follow Yorktown and Enterprise with 3 carriers of near Essex size, or 4 more Yorktowns, putting the USN in a much better position at the end of 41 with a net gain of 1 or 2 fleet carriers.
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  20. Interesting ships. Combined with the radically rebuilt earlier battleships, Italy had a fleet capable of stirring up a lot of trouble. Would have been interesting if the oil in Libya had been discovered and produced with the technology of the 1930s, giving Italy and Germany a much larger incentive to defend North Africa, and providing the Italian fleet with an unlimited fuel supply.
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  21. wrt the Torpedo strike on Gneisenau, that operation is covered in detail in "Torpedo Bomber" by Ralph Barker. The book was also published in the UK as "Ship Busters". As Drac said, the raid was botched quite badly. iirc, from reading the book a few years ago, one other Beaufort did make it to the rendezvous point outside the harbor and was waiting for the other Beauforts to arrive. As that Beaufort orbited, the pilot saw Campbell arrive, and roar past, into the harbor, instead of forming up with the other Beaufort. Reading how that raid had been planned, the thought that occurred to me was that, had the bombers shown up as planned, all the AA gunners would have been awake and at their posts when the Beauforts tried to penetrate the harbor, and would probably have been shot out of the sky. As it worked out, Campbell took everyone by surprise and successfully reached the ship. The Germans recovered the plane and crew from the harbor. Apparently Campbell had been hit moments after dropping the torpedo, because the Germans reported a Canadian, I don't recall the man's name at the moment, was in the pilot's seat, when the plane was recovered.
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  22. So the Germans were interested in quad turrets? That explains why, when the Germans overran the Fives-Lille works, which was working on components for the Normandie class quad turrets, the turret parts found their way to Krupp.
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  23. Trivia bit about the photo at 59:36, in the question about aviators and brown shoes: That pic was taken at NAS North Island during production of "Hell Divers" in September, 1931. From left to right: (actor) Cliff Edwards, Lt John Thatch, (actors) Clark Gable (before he grew his trademark mustache) and Wallace Beery, and Lt Herbert Duckworth.
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  24. I would dispute the characterization of the Essex class as "non-treaty restricted" ships. The treaty limit for carriers through Washington and First London was 27,000 tons. The Essex, according to Wiki, came in at a standard displacement of 27,100 (close enough). I submit that Essex was based on a design the USN had been developing through the 30s as a treaty-max concept, that had been shelved when Second London reduced carrier tonnage to 23,000, then quickly dusted off and updated when the treaty system collapsed and Congress authorized two new carriers. I would say the Audacious class is closer to a Midway in being a completely post-treaty, clean-sheet, design.
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  25. Thanks for your reply to my question about Courageous. I am satisfied that Furious was intended as a test bed for the 18". The design was in hand, could be built quickly, and, was large enough to carry the 18" guns. Since posting that question, I found a letter on The Dreadnought Project: Fisher to d'Eyncourt, saying words to the effect that the Baltic operation was "the story we will use to sell them to Cabinet", which makes it sound like the Baltic op was not what Fisher really had in mind, but only an excuse to build them. In that letter, Fisher also says having the draft be 22 1/2 feet or less was imperative. The draft was the only parameter laid out in that letter that Courageous missed, by a wide margin. Renown's draft was some 5 feet less than Revenge, but Courageous' draft was only some 14 inches less than Renown, so hardly seems worth the bother. I tried redesigning Courageous in SpringSharp to see if I could get to that 22 1/2 foot draft. Could not make the hull any flimsier, so replaced the two twin 15" with three twin 9.2" turrets borrowed from Lord Nelson pre-dreadnoughts, to reduce weight. Only reduced the draft to 24 1/2 feet. It could be a matter of Fisher seeing those unused 15" turrets and deciding he would see them used, for something, other than a monitor, and Courageous was what he came up with, to have the turrets put to use, much as the construction of Vanguard was due to the availability of those same four turrets.
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  26. Actually, it was confusion. The Beauforts were ordered to follow the Hudsons and the Hudsons had apparently been ordered to follow the Beauforts. The Beauforts tried radioing to the airbase they were circling to get it straightened out, but the Beaufort's radios were on the wrong frequency.
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  27. North Dakota's turbines were the source of considerable consternation. She was equipped with Curtis turbines, which broke down, often. Newspapers of 1916-1917 reported North Dakota being laid up, and ongoing discussions whether to scrap her, or replace the turbines. The US' entry into the war motivated the decision to replace the turbines. iirc, when North Dakota was scrapped, the relatively modern turbines were recovered and installed in Nevada, when that ship was modernized.
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  28. First time I ever heard of RN monitors was reading "HMS Saracen" in the mid 60s. On the flap of the dustcover was a short piece on HMS Roberts, which, at the time, was the last surviving monitor.
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  29. I was pondering Erin a week ago. Seems that it would have made a good substitute for Almirante Cochrane when Chile was looking to repurchase it's battleships after the war. It should have been feasible to regun Almirante Latorre with 13.5" guns from RN inventory, so that Latorre would share both main battery and 6"/50 secondary battery with Erin to ease logistics. The three destroyers Chile bought instead, appear to have been nearly worn out at the time.
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  30. Decades ago, I read about a USN ship at the breakers. It must have been the Edward H. Allen, a Butler class DE, When the wrecking crew opened a storage locker, they found it full of life jackets from the Andrea Doria.
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  31. wrt the question about the TBD. The aviation museum in Kalamazoo, MI, which has gained a good reputation for restoring WWII Navy aircraft salvaged from Lake Michigan, is involved with a project to attempt salvage of several of the TBDs in the debris field around Lexington. Another target of the mission is salvage of an F4F in that debris field that was flow by both Thach and O'Hare. When I last talked with anyone from that museum's resto shop, last winter, the expedition was scheduled to set sail for the Coral Sea in May. I will probably make my annual visit to the museum this fall, so will inquire about any progress made.
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  32. wrt the question about barrel life, Drac didn't touch on the issue of relining worn barrels, which was routinely done by WWI, if not sooner. There is a 1915 edition USN Midshipman's text book on Google books that describes the process. Initially, guns were built without liners, so the barrel had to be bored out to provide room for the liner. In the boring operation, we are talking about a feed rate for the boring head of about 6" per hour. On a USN 14"/45 from a Pennsylvania class BB, with a bore length of 630", that means that one operation takes 105 hours, or a bit under 4 and a half days, running continuously, and several cuts are made before reaching the finish dimension. The gun factories changed to building new guns with liners already in place. Then the process for refurbishing the gun was to put the gun in an oven heating the outside, to make it expand, while running cold water through the bore to cause the liner to shrink, to loosen it. Then a hydraulic press was used to push the worn liner out. Then a new liner was fitted the same way. Initially, liners were made with the same outside diameter their entire length, but it was found that sometimes they refused to come out, and had to be bored out. Then they hit on the idea of putting a slight taper on the liner, which eased removal.
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  33. France and Italy were allowed to improve vertical armor. and upgun main armament. As you say, those improvements were verboten to everyone else.
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  34. wrt the question about Mutsu, as Drac said, there was no way of knowing how useful Mutsu would be twenty years in the future. The original plan was for Japan to retain Settsu. Her sister, Kawachi, was sunk by a magazine explosion in 1918. With Mutsu, Japan was nearly 14,000 tons under her treaty quota. With Settsu instead, Japan would have been 26,000 tons under quota. Settsu would age out in 1931, but Japan would still only have 47,000 tons of headroom under their limit, not enough to build two treaty max ships. My favorite plan, as it makes the math the easiest, is to stick to the 5:5:3 ratio in "post Jutland" ships, and parity with the UK having one 42,000 ton ship, The IJN to have Nagato, Mutsu, and Tosa, while the US completes all four Colorados, plus one Lexington to act as consort to the carriers, and the UK builds four Nelsons to complement Hood. But the objective of the treaty was to stop spending money building ships. From what I have read, the Japanese had a lot of national pride tied up in Mutsu, and were determined at the conference that they were not going to give her up. What they ultimately did was probably the best possible outcome, with minimal waste for both Japan and the US, and minimal extra construction cost for the UK.
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  35. re ships running out of fuel, one of the USN destroyers that was transferred to the RN in 40 came very close. The episode is recounted in "Fifty Ships That Saved The World". The ship was a Caldwell class, shorter ranged than the later Wickes class. There was concern about her short range, but, it was reasoned, she made it to France in 1918, so should be able to make it across the Atlantic again. Her group of six destroyers were en route from Halifax when they picked up radio traffic from Jervis Bay, which was engaging the Scheer. As the USN had handed over the ships with full magazines and torpedo tubes, the destroyers rang up flank and rushed to Jervis Bay's aid. They arrived too late, but the flank speed run had used up a lot of fuel. According to the book, the burners in the Caldwell class went out from lack of fuel, just as she dropped anchor in Belfast.
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  36. wrt the question about Delaware's turret sighting hoods. Initially, the USN had the sighting hoods on the roof of the turret. When the USN adopted superfiring turrets, the sights were moved to a position low on the sides of the turrets, to move them away from the muzzle blast. The sight hoods are clearly visible on the pic Drac shows of the forward turrets at 21:13. They are exactly at the same level as the guns themselves, on the forward part of the turret. This change had a second benefit. The top mounted sights were connected to the guns via a complex linkage. No matter how precisely the components of the linkage were made, there was always a small amount of slop, which became more important as ranges increased. When the sights were moved to the sides of the turret, they were rigidly bracketed to the trunnions of the guns, so there was no lost motion between gun and sight. re the engines in Delaware's sister, North Dakota. ND was originally build with Curtis turbines. Besides being very inefficient, the Curtis turbines broke down, often. There was considerable discussion, reported in the newspapers in 1917, about whether ND should be scrapped, or reengined. When the US entered the war, the decision was made that it would be faster to reengine ND, than to build a replacement, so new, geared, turbines, were installed. When ND was scrapped, the new turbines were removed, and installed in Nevada, when that ship was modernized.
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  37. On the question of relining large guns, as Drac said they used an oven to heat the outside of the tube. At the same time, they would run cool water through the bore, to increase the temperature differential to loosen the liner. After a few years, the USN figured out that if the OD of the liner and the ID of the tube were made with a slight taper, it would facilitate liner removal. If the liner refuses to budge, it has to be bored out. Each cut of the boring tool would take 3-4 days, so boring out a stuck liner would take a matter of weeks.
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  38.  @fearthehoneybadger  the Japanese barges that were used for shuttling men and supplies between islands were designed to be armored if the threat environment required. The armor was heavy enough to limit the effectiveness of the 50 cal and 20mm PT armament, hence the search for something heavier, like the 37mm that was carried by the P39. A tactic often used against barges was to maneuver behind the barge and shoot at the helmsman, as his armor shield only protected against fire forward of the barge.
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  39. 13:30 mark, SecNav Daniels did assent to the Tennessees having 14" guns, but the driver in that decision was the head of BuOrd, Admiral Strauss. This was one of the more bizarre episodes at BuOrd. Strauss was of the opinion that engagements would always be at 12,000 yards or less, the 14" could penetrate at that range well enough, and, being lighter, more 14" could be mounted. There was public discussion whether the Tennessees would carry 14" or 16" in 1915, but disinformation about the 16" was being fed to the press. In one lengthy article about the Tennessees, there are a couple paragraphs about how the 16" was subject to extremely high barrel wear, and claims that the British 15" was also subject to very high wear, with a barrel life of less than 100 rounds. So, the Tennessees were ordered with 14". Jutland disproved Strauss' talking points in favor of the 14" and, in July of 1916, SecNav Daniels announced that the next class, what we know as the Colorados, would carry 16" guns. In his annual report for that year, Daniels says that the decision was made over the objections of some officers. Strauss offered his resignation and requested sea duty, effective upon appointment of a successor. A few weeks passed, and Strauss seems to have been dissatisfied with the pace of selection of his replacement. Strauss trotted out his talking points in favor of the 14" again, in a public Congressional hearing, months after the General Board and Daniels had decided on the 16". President Wilson nominated Ralph Earle, then commander of the Indian Head test range the next day. The Senate approved Earle that day, and Strauss was gone from BuOrd. The Tennessees appear to have the same diameter barbette as the Colorados, 31ft. The twin 16" turret is slightly lighter and the part of the turret that extends down into the barbette is about 6" smaller diameter, so it certainly appears feasible to have regunned the Tennessees while under construction. After commissioning, when the dispersion problem with the triple 14"/50 mounts was discovered, if it crossed the Navy's mind to regun with the 16", it was quickly dismissed, as the WNT prohibited increasing gun size, except for France and Italy.
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  40. Rather than paying exorbitant prices for OOP books, I would urge people to check their public library. The library in my township is small, but it can transfer in books from other libraries around the state, and I can access books on line via Hoopla. The library transferred in "Warships of the IJN" for me, among others, and I have accessed books on German battleships and Friedman on Naval Weapons via Hoopla. And it's all free. Some of the information on Japanese ships can be fragmentary. For instance, there are just enough gaps in the narrative for me to not be entirely sure whether the Kiis were intended to be a distinct class of battleships, or a proposal to up-armor the Amagis on the slipway. The only time I came up entirely empty at the library was in trying to learn why Nuffield chose the Liberty engine for the Cruiser tanks they built.
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  41.  @bkjeong4302  Long range multiplies the challenges. The torpedo plane pilot, or sub commander, has to estimate distance to target and target speed. While a sub commander has some technical assistance, a pilot had to eyeball everything. This was one of the problems the Brit torpedo plane pilots had hitting the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the channel as they were used to shooting at freighters steaming at 10kn, while the warships were steaming at 30, and the pilots didn't lead the ships enough. Another problem is how slow a torp is. The Brit Mk 12 ran at 40, the USN Mk 13, only 33kn. The slower the torp, the longer the time to target, amplifying errors in range and speed estimates and the more time the target has to maneuver. I suspect another factor is the pilot's ability to press on through intense AA fire. Consider the USN's success at Coral Sea vs the Shoho vs the same pilot's lack of success against the more heavily defended Shōkaku. It is harder to get in close when your plane is being shot to bits around you.
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  42. France had some appalling old tubs still in service in 1940. Pondering how the Brits came to be allowed to build two new, clean sheet designs, (Nelson and Rodney) by the treaty, when the treaty was supposed to be about stopping spending on capital ships, it occurs that the US was crying a river about having 3 treaty compliant ships at 75-80% complete (Washington, Colorado and West Virginia) and the enormous waste of scrapping them, to which the Brits might have replied "everything we have in process exceeds treaty limits, so if you want to complete the Colorados, we insist on being allowed to build new, treaty complaint, ships too, but we only want to build two, so you should only be allowed to complete two of your three." France had four Normandies in the water, in an advanced stage of construction. Seems France could have used the same forbearance offered to the US and UK and had two Normandies completed. But France reportedly took one look at the 28kt BBs Italy was working on, looked at what it would take to push the Normandies to an equal speed, found the cost exorbitant, and that was the end of it. It might be interesting to ponder, if two Normandies had been completed, as originally designed, replacing two of the Courbets, then rebuilt in the 30s to the degree the Andria Dorias were rebuilt.
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  43. Over 50 years ago, I read a book about the battle of Savo Island. As the US destroyers came along side Canberra to take the crew off, they discovered the Aussies were wearing pajamas. That was a surprise, as Americans sleep in their underwear.
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  44. The Regia Marina built a lot of destroyers in the 20s. Somewhere in my notes, I have some rough calculations of how many destroyers they would need to forego to put together enough money to complete Caracciolo. At the time of the Washington Treaty, renovation of da Vinci was still under active consideration. The Treaty treated da Vinci as an active unit of the fleet, rather than as a hulk, raised from the bottom of Taranto harbor. The Washington treaty allows for replacement of ships lost due to accident. Italy could argue that the da Vinci should be replaceable, as it had blown up. Seems that, if Italy had wanted a battleship, means could have been found to complete Caracciolo.
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  45. wrt to Dr D M Platt's question about replacing guns, expanding a bit on gun refurbishment, since he mentions whether a gun has a liner or not: To replace the liner the gun was placed in a pit, and the outside tube heated, while cool water was flushed through the bore to cool the liner, with the difference in thermal expansion between the cool liner and hot tube hopefully loosening the liner so it could be pressed out. Initially, the USN made liners with a uniform outside diameter, but then realized if the liner's outside diameter had a slight taper the chances of successfully pressing the liner out were improved. If the liner refused to be pressed out, then the procedure is the same as refurbishing a gun that was not originally made with a liner: the inside of the gun would need to be bored out to entirely remove the stuck liner, or to prepare a gun to have a liner fitted for the first time. Boring out a gun would take several weeks. I may have a more specific number in my notes somewhere, but I recall reading that the boring time was a matter of 3-4 days, for each cut. I just found a piece on youtube by Ryan, the curator of Battleship New Jersey, talking about 16" gun construction and maintenance. He says the refurbishment process, if all goes smoothly, took about 2 months.
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  46. A friend of mine is retired career Canadian military. He got bored with the infantry (Princess Pat's) and, thanks to the merger of the services, transitioned to aircrew as AESOP. He was training in S2s in the expectation of being embarked on the Bonnie. He said he looked at the tiny escape hatch for his position and decided if the plane ever went in the drink, he would drown before he could wriggle out of the hatch. Fortunately, the Bonnie was paid off just as he was about to complete his training in S2s, so he was switched to Sea Kings, ultimately doing 4 tours in Sea Kings and 2 in an Argus, sniffing Russian subs. Given his long service, he has more sea stories than most people.
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  47. On the question of the KGVs being built as Lions, the treaty would not have allowed it, in the same time frame. The treaty required the parties to negotiate a displacement escalator, when it was determined that a non-signatory to the treaty was building a larger ship. The US and UK did not finish those negotiations until mid 1938. so, at the very least, KGV and PoW would have been laid down a year and a half later. Being laid down in the second half of 38, neither would have been in service when Bismark attempted it's breakout. I looked up where all the other RN capital ships were on the day of the battle in Denmark Strait. If the KGVs were not yet in service, the RN would probably have kept the Nelsons close to the UK. How would they be deployed to catch Bismark? How would Denmark Strait play out with both Nelsons, or Nelson plus Hood? If the Admiralty had decided to leverage existing material on hand, to speed construction, there were actually 8 twin 15" turrets in hand: the four from Courageous and Glorious, and the four that were on the Erebus and Roberts class monitors. Laying down only two Vanguards in late 38. rather than 5 KGVs would put less of a load on industrial capacity, so might result in a faster build. but I would not bet the farm on both being in commission by May 41. If they did make it into commission by late 41, then scratch one of only two modern battleships with Force Z. A Vanguard may not have had the same vulnerability that PoW had, but the Japanese would probably have kept beating on it until it sank.
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  48. As Drac said, wrt the 14" armed Tennessees vs 16" armed Colorados, the question came down to USN expectations of engagement range. Head of BuOrd Strauss insisted that engagements would always be fought at 12,000 yards, or less. The 14" could penetrate well enough at that range, and, being smaller and lighter, more could be carried. Jutland drove the final nail in that theory. In the summer of 1916, the General Board, and SecNav Daniels, agreed 16" was the way to go, and overrode Strauss' recommendation. In his annual report that year, Daniels discussed the switch to 16", and said the change was made over the objections of "some officers". Strauss was very proud of the 14"/50, ordering it into production off the drawing board, with no testing. Can't help but wonder, if testing had been done, and the dispersion problems these guns experienced been discovered, would the 16" been selected for the Tennessees, by virtue of the fact the 16" can actually hit what it is aimed at?
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  49. As sales agent for Vickers, Basil Zaharoff really got around. If you ever come upon a DVD set of the early 80s production of "Reilly Ace Of Spies", Zaharoff is played well by Leo McKern.
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  50.  @robertf3479  yes, the volume of gas was a major issue. The Lexingtons could have easily been designed like the Kaga, with huge ducts along the sides of the hanger. The USN also looked at having the forward end of the hangers open for additional aircraft launching, as was done in the original layout of Kaga. Aviators were pressing for the Lexintons to have no obstructions at all on the flight deck, no island, no funnel. Ranger tried to address the gas issue by placing the boilers aft of the turbines so the gas could be vented near the aft end of the ship without long ducts. Given the minimal experience with carriers at the time, it is pure luck that they turned out as well as they did, rather than looking exactly like Kaga's original configuration. iirc, the original 1916 design for the Lexintons had 24 boilers, located on 2 decks, with 7 funnels.
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